Gross introduced the document on January 8. No one has seen it or read it yet. I voted against including these recommendations on the agenda of the PACE bureau - head of the Russian delegation

Alexei Pushkov

STRASBOURG, January 27. /ITAR-TASS/. Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have not yet seen recommendations to the PACE Cabinet of Ministers on the report on the death of Sergei Magnitsky, Chairman of Russia's State Duma Committee for International Affairs and head of the Russian delegation to PACE Alexei Pushkov told Itar-Tass on Monday. “The document’s author, Andreas Gross [Switzerland], introduced recommendations at the very last moment,” explained Pushkov.

“Gross introduced the document on January 8. No one has seen it or read it yet. I voted against including these recommendations on the agenda of the PACE bureau,” noted Pushkov. The diplomat added that “Gross proposes the recommendation to urge the PACE Cabinet of Ministers to oblige those countries, through which the money stolen from the Russian budget, 230 million dollars, had gone, to track the money.”

“The problem is that, while in the attachments a number of banks in different countries are mentioned, including Estonia, Switzerland, Cyprus, the recommendation itself stated that only Russia should conduct an investigation into the disappearance of money,” said Pushkov. The diplomat also noted that Gross included in his document “a demand that the Russian side presents all those guilty in Magnitsky’s death and all those who benefited from his death.”

“This is a very questionable way to put it because Magnitsky’s former employers from “Hermitage Capital” investment fund could have benefited from his death as well,” added the diplomat. Head of the Russian delegation stressed that no one defended Gross’s recommendations at the bureau meeting because no one has seen the project yet. “As a result, the bureau decided that a final decision will be made later today at the session of the Commission for Legal Issues about the recommendation itself and its inclusion on the agenda,” concluded Pushkov.